Morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven [Conn.]) 1848-1894, 1887-11-28
Btw 8area Gully g@urning gunrnal and Gonriet.


=
Rev. John G. Collins Talks ON That
Subject-Its Evils Affect Everybody
The Poorest Man Has to Pay More to
Live Because OfIt-F1IIs the Jatls and
other PIaces-The License System a
Farce-ur. Collins Plan to Remedy
the Difficulty.
Rev. John @. Collins gave very interest,"
ing address at English Hall last night on
"The Problem of the Liquor Traffic and
how Shall it be Solved" Mr.. Collins first
stated the liquor problem as it stands to-day;
how the traffic of liquor has broken up
| homes, made criminals, transformed men into
| reckless brutes. Intoxicating liquors are
used moderately by large number without
any of these results. 1t is used for medi-
| einal purposes.
The solution of the problem:
'The injury wrought by the liquor traffic
| affects directly or indirectly every member
of community. Those who have no rel
atives or others dependent upon them who
| are wasting time, money and life in satisfy
| ing the cravings for drink are certainly taxed
| to support criminals or paupers who are the
direct products of the drink habit. In order
| to be taxpayer it may be well to say that it
| is not essential that one should be the owner
of house and lot or other property on
| which he pays directly to the tax gatherer a
/ certain percentage, for remember that
| if taxes go up landlords and own
ers of property raise rents, and
| if rents are higher provisions and
| clothing are increased in price and in other
ways man may pay taxes without owning q
| foot of land or having a dollar of taxable
| property. The poorest man in this town has
to pay more to live in New Haven because of
fba toy vuhi n
| products of the liquor traffic who live in the
Jail and the poorhoUse or are confined in the
County home or the Reform school. Hence
the evils of the liquor traffic affect everybody.
''Since this is SO it is proper that society
/ should pass laws to protect itself and do what
/ it can to prevent the evil, and therefore the
question of the liquor traffic has legitimate
place in politics.
Regarding the efforts to limit the evil
through license system, the speaker held
| that system to be, if not makeshift, very
/ wide and pernicious system. Even very high
| license would do nothing more than make
tie community sharer in the profits of the
1 business, and consequently in the response
bility of the crimes growing out of it. 1t
may preserve the rights of some, but it never
has, and believe it never will do away with
single evil. Look for moment at what
we do in New Haven.
The speaker then drew a vivid picture of
the woes caused by liquor drinking as illus
trated every day in New Haven, many of the
cases coming uRder his personal observation
in the prosecution of his work. Our prisons
will be more crowded, he added, until the
liquor traffic is grappled with practically and
/ in common sense way. Emphatically the
license system is farce, if not a crime. The
speaker was prohibitionist from Christian
principles. He would not ask his hearers to
! join the prohibition party as a political par
! ty, although that power had rapidly grown
into power and would, so its best leaders
expected, poll million and halfof votes in
1888. The speaker was prohibitionist from
sense of Christian duty. Continuing the
speaker said further:
CHOW am a prohibitionist simply be-
cause it seems to me to be binding Chris
tian obligation to do what little 1 can to
help along the best plan and the one most
likely to be put into execution to overthrow
the gigantic wrongs inflicted upon my fellow
men through the use of Intoxicating liquor
Yet, confess that 1 hesitate to interfere
with the liberty of any man to do anything
even to drink glass of beer or iquor-so
long as it neither Injuries him or any other,
and 1 would gladly acquiesce and 1 think
thousands of others with me would do the
same in any plan which would do away with
the wrong and put the restrictions only upon
the ones who really ought to have it. The
trouble lies with the man who uses the liquor
immoderately and Injuries himself and his
family, and thereby society.
81 have plan which 1 have thought out
during these years in which have been face
to face in this city with the problem of the
liquor traffic, and l would respectfully rec
ommend it for the consideration of some of
my good friends in political life who are not
yet ready to go with the prohibition party.
I sometimes think it is not much unlike the
plan which will in the end be adopted as the
final solution of the liquor problem. Let
there be in each town commission consist
ing of FIVE men, and let the number of saloons
in town the size of New Haven be limited
to twenty, or one for every four
thousand inhabitants The places for
the saloons should then be located by the
commission, and the right to sell intoxicat~
ing liquors in the several places be auctioned
off to the highest bidder. In this way the
number of saloons could be restricted and
their location controlled. Let the money res
ceived, which would be as much if not more
than under the present system, be used
in paying good salary to the commissioners
for the enforcement of the laws necessary to
thorough supervision of the traffic, for a
benefit fund for sick and aged policemen and
in like ways. The men who paid SIS, 900 each
for their licenses would see to it that no
other men engaged in the same business
for nothing. Let law be enacted that no
liquor should be sold or given to any man
for one year who has been convicted of
drunkenness or who was found after investi-
cation by the commission to be frequenting
the saloons and spending his money to his
own injury or to the neglect of his family, and
let the penalty be the forfeiture of the saloon
keepers license who gave him the liquor
Such a notice might be given to the twenty
saloon keepers, but it is folly to give such a
notice, as has sometimes been done in this
city, to four hundred saloon keepers. Com
plants should be received by the commission
and investigation made without giving pub
licity to the complainant and let the
refusal by the commission to care
fully investigate any complaint be suf-
fcient ground for their removal. A chemist
should be appointed who would frequently
and in unexpected times and ways obtain
the liquor which is sold and analyze it, and
let the penalty for selling adulterated liquors
be forfeiture of license. There might also
be further restrictions, such as no saloons to
be open on Sunday or after 10 o'clock p. m.
or before O'Clock q. M, or any other that
might be necessary. Restrictions might be
enforced with twenty saloons which are i'm
possible when there are four hundred.
but these are only suggestions and 1
must leave the subject as I brought it to
you, How shall it be solvedG Il has a
question mark after it. 1t will be solved, 1